Fw 189A-1, Great Wall Hobby, 1/48

Fw 189A-1 “Nachtjäger”

by Peter Vagač

The Great Wall Hobby kit cought my eye immediately as I saw it in the model shop. Formerly I wanted to (and I still want to) build the Slovak “Rahm”. Being a big fan of night fighters – and especially the german ones from World War II – I had absolutely no doubt. This airplane is very interesting as it is, and particularly in this version, as the Po-2 hunter, the plane is a true rarity.

To build this kit I hunted down PE-parts from eduard, new propellers from Quick Boost and a stack of reference books. However, I was mostly inspired by the reference downloaded from russian modeler blogs.

After studying the original kit instruction plan, it is clear you will have to improvize. Mainly the way how to mount the “Schräge Musik” shooting gun into the plane is not clear at all. The eduard PE-parts do not help here either.

The following parts of the kit had to be improved: cockpit interior details, engine mount and undercarriage well details. The PE flaps from eduard are excellent – but this is the place where one can play around too. And of course, the kit needed to be newly riveted as well.

After my thorough study, this camouflage was used: RLM 70/71/65 colours with RLM 76 mottles. While the colours used are Mr. Gunze C, the varnishes are TAMIYA and the washes plus oils are Pz abteilung 502. Scratches and chipping were made by the “hairspray method ” using the AK interactive “heavy chipping” fluid.

Tha darkest side of this kit was the original decals. I do not know why such “metal plate” decals were used within this otherwise high quality model kit… CARTOGRAF crosses were used onto the lower surfaces as replacement.

This project took me a whole year to finish and I can say I am sure going to build at least two out-of-the-box kits to take a breath.

I would like to thank Juraj Bojkovský for the nice photographs.

For more finished model-kits please see the Built Kits category. If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by sharing it on Facebook.